How base, then, had the Graf made his own house by abandoning the refugees? How much greater was his crime than that of the cruel raugraf?
Mandred would set things right. As much as it was within his power, he would atone for his father’s cruelty. But first he had to see for himself first-hand the situation in the refugee camp. Perhaps if he reported to his father the way things stood, he could make the Graf appreciate that these were people, not some faceless complication to be dismissed with a wave of his hand.
Franz was visibly uneasy as they rode through the market district towards the massive gatehouse which opened onto the eastern causeway. The bald knight kept looking over his shoulder, staring off in the direction of the Middenplatz and the Graf’s palace. Mandred felt a twinge of sympathy for his bodyguard. Franz had always been a loyal retainer, devoted to Mandred but obedient to the Graf. Never before had the prince placed him in a position where he had to choose between his loyalties. It made him happy to know Franz had sided with him.
The prince saluted the guards stationed at the gate. ‘Raise the portcullis,’ he called down to them.
The soldiers looked nervously at one another. The sergeant in command of the gate advanced towards Mandred’s horse. ‘Your grace, his highness the Graf has ordered that no one is to leave the city.’
‘That order doesn’t apply to me,’ Mandred said, adopting his most imperious tone, a tone of such arrogance that it brooked no defiance. Every peasant was born to obey such a voice, to defer to the superiority of their noble lords. The sergeant was no exception. Turning back to his men, he started to give the order to raise the gate.
What stopped him was the sound of galloping horses. Through the cobbled streets of the market district, a squadron of cavalry came thundering towards the gate. The snowy wolf-pelts and crimson armour the knights wore marked them as White Wolves. At their head, his dark blue robe fluttering about him, rode Graf Gunthar himself.
The sergeant saluted as the cavalry drew rein before the gate, but he went ignored by the Graf. His face crimson with anger, the Graf walked his horse between Mandred and the gate. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ Graf Gunthar snarled.
For an instant, Mandred cowered before his father’s wrath. Then the thought that right was on his side put steel back into his spine. The prince stared defiantly into his father’s eyes. ‘I’m doing what you should have done,’ he said. ‘I’m going down there and helping the refugees.’
Mandred wasn’t sure what kind of response he expected, but it wasn’t the one he got. Graf Gunthar’s face went white, his eyes shined with horror. Before Mandred could react, his father’s hand smacked against his face with such violence the prince was nearly knocked from the saddle.
‘Get back to the palace,’ Graf Gunthar snarled, his voice trembling. Mandred stared in confusion when he heard that tone. It was the voice of a man on the edge of panic. He looked at his father, noticing his body shivering under the rich blue robe. He’d left the palace in such haste he hadn’t even paused to don a cloak against the winter chill.
Remembering why his father had left the palace, all sympathy drained out of the prince’s heart. ‘I won’t,’ he growled back. ‘Someone has to help those people.’
Colour rushed back into the Graf’s face. His body stiffened as anger swelled up inside him. ‘You’d like to bring them inside our walls?’ he challenged. ‘Bring all those sick people up here, pack them in with our own, shelter them in our own homes? And when they bring the plague into Middenheim what will you do then? What will you tell our people when they lie sick and dying in the streets? What will you tell our people when they throw their dead over the Cliff of Sighs?’
More than the slap against his face, the Graf’s words made Mandred reel. The prince shook his head, stubbornly trying to defy the ghastly logic of his father’s words.
‘Our duty is to our own people,’ Graf Gunthar told him. ‘Not to strangers.’ His expression softened, he reached to grip his son’s shoulder. ‘Believe me, if we could help those people without endangering the city…’
Mandred shook off his father’s hand, his mind refusing to accept the grim reality the Graf had resigned himself to. He had done his father an injustice when he had called him a tyrant. He wasn’t cruel. He was scared.
But that still didn’t make him right.
Without saying a word, Mandred turned his horse and started back into the city. Franz followed behind him. The boy scowled at his bodyguard. There was only one person who could have told his father about what he was doing.
‘You don’t have to come with me,’ Mandred told the knight. ‘I’ll behave myself now. You can stay with my father.’
Bitterness and a feeling of betrayal poured venom into Mandred’s voice as he galloped ahead of Franz.
‘You’ve shown me where your loyalty lies.’
Skavenblight
Kaldezeit, 1111
The stink of stagnant water and swamp seepage created an atmosphere almost sufficient to blot out the rotten odour of the plague priest. Within the confines of the stone-walled vault, the smell of the ratman’s mouldering green robes and mangy fur was enough to turn the stomach of even another skaven.
Perched atop a heap of broken masonry, Warlord Krricht pressed a blood-soaked rag to his nose in an effort to stifle the reek. The dozen armoured stormvermin surrounding the warlord weren’t so fortunate, coughing and wheezing as their keen noses rebelled against the stink.
The plague priest cared nothing for the discomfort of the other skaven, his warty lip pulling away from his fangs in an expression of contempt. The simpering flea-lickers of Clan Mors were no true children of the Horned One. They were ignorant of the true face of the Horned Rat, unable or unwilling to embrace the pernicious glory of their god. They would learn, however. Like the rest of skavendom, they would join the Pestilent Brotherhood or they would perish.
Poxmaster Puskab Foulfur pulled back the tattered hood of his habit, exposing a face hideous with decay. The patchy remnants of once-white fur were darkening into a jaundiced yellow. The bare flesh of his cheeks was rotten and leprous, strings of muscle gleaming wetly where the skin had peeled away entirely. A pair of crooked antlers sprouted from his scalp, stained with filth and pitted with decay. Only the priest’s eyes seemed alive, shining from the shadows of deep sockets, blazing with a fanatic intensity.
Warlord Krricht shifted uneasily upon his perch. He had selected this meeting place because he could arrive early and claim the high ground. Skaven respected height — they were naturally subservient to those who could look down upon them. In any negotiation, it was the wise ratman who assumed a dominant position without a single word being uttered or a single drop of musk being vented into the air.
Unfortunately, Puskab wasn’t fazed by the warlord’s dominant position and as for the musk of supremacy, even if Krricht had secreted it there was no chance the diseased priest would smell it over his own filthy odours. The warlord looked anxiously at his coughing bodyguard, grinding his teeth at their display of weakness in the face of the plague priest. He had counted upon them to present a formidable sight, to cow Puskab with their menacing presence if all else failed. They were a dozen to the three plague monks which had accompanied Puskab, that should have been enough to intimidate the representative of Clan Pestilens. Instead, his stormvermin made a pathetic spectacle of themselves instead of bracing up and performing their duty!